Page 5 of Monstrous Serpent

Cap: North side. Past Rocky Point lot. I'm here.

“Cap's already there.”

Hunter nods. “Should be enough girls here tonight. Easy to find someone we’re both into, eh?”

My stomach drops. “Yeah.”

It’s not like we haven’t had a threesome together before. We’ve done it twice. Tonight will be the third. But it’s not the girl I want.

Hunter shut down the idea of us being together like that two years ago. I’d been drunk and mentioned it as a joke. Turns out I’m sooo important to him he would never risk it. So, I take what I can get.

“You good?”

I jerk my head toward him. “Yeah no, I’m good.”

The truck slows as we pull into the parking lot. There’s no banner, no signs. Nothing advertising what’s happening out here tonight. But the lot is packed.

I sit up in my seat. “How’d Cap come across this event anyway?”

Hunter grunts.

Fucking typical.

It’s not like I don’t know our captain and my best friend have similar interests, both sexual and nonsexual. They like to hunt. To chase. And depending on the situation, to end a life or fuck the living shit out of whoever they caught. Which happens to be why we’re here now.

Don’t Look Back isn’t some horror fun run. It’s a primal play event.

Hunter pulls into a spot and cuts the engine. He's been itchy since we got back to campus. We spent the entire summer with my family. It left us with no time to get away and take care of his darker needs. And since coming back to school, there hasn't been a hunt. We haven’t found someone deserving of a shallow grave yet.

Tonight might not be what Hunter really needs, but it should be enough to take the edge off.

I whistle, taking in the view. “Big turnout.”

Not sure what I expected, but it certainly wasn’t this many people. They’re all stretching, pulling on masks, adjusting armbands. A girl in a leather harness and running shorts leans against the hood of a Jeep while her friend laces up combat boots. Two guys in matching wolf masks warm up near the tree line like they're about to run a 5K in hell.

Then there’s a girl wearing a short glittery dress, looking more like she should be at a club than here. “How far does Sparkles over there think she’s running in those stilettos?”

Hunter grunts, the corner of his mouth ticking up. “Don’t think she intends to make it past the parking lot.”

“Then why waste the money on the entrance fee?”

I unbuckle my seatbelt, grab the duffel bag from the backseat, open it, and pull out our masks. They’re plain white. Nothing special, nothing distinguishable.

But that’s the point.

When our group hunts—the real hunts, the ones that don't end with sex—we all dress the same. Same masks, same black hoodies and black pants, same silence. No names, no faces, just the pack moving through the trees until we catch what we’re chasing.

Tonight's not that. Tonight's just fucking.

Doesn’t matter.

Hunter and I are our own unit. Always have been. Two halves of a whole.

My breathing evens out as I pull the mask on. Something in my chest clicks into a lower gear, quieter, more focused. The version of me that has bashed a man's skull in with a rock.

I hold Hunter's mask out to him. He takes it without looking.

A few cars down, a guy with a similar mask is propped against the side of a Black Dodge Charger. “There’s Cap.”